from the you're-doing-it-wrong dept

We've been covering the bizarre (mostly publicity-motivated) attacks on the Village Voice's Backpage.com site for a while. Those efforts have been ramping up, and every day I seem to get press releases from some ridiculous group that is apparently coordinating this misguided and dangerous attack. It appears that some of the silly publicity stunt is working, with Senators Richard Blumenthal, Mark Kirk, John Cornyn, Sheldon Whitehouse and Marco Rubio all supporting a "resolution" demanding Backpage take down its "adult entertainment" section. We've seen this battle before. Craigslist went through the same ridiculous moral panic a few years ago. And all it did was drive all of this traffic elsewhere -- with a lot of it settling on Backpage. Of course, that effort was led by then Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal, before he became a Senator -- so it's no surprise that he's involved in this pointeless effort as well.

Here's the thing: we already know how this game plays out. You can browbeat these companies into shutting off this part of their forums against their own will, and many of them will cave. And you'll celebrate victory, but as you do that, everyone will be rapidly exploring alternatives, which most will move to pretty quickly. In other words, such a crackdown won't do a damn thing to stop people from actually being exploited. Even worse, in pressuring that content to scatter, it becomes much more difficult for law enforcement to track down and arrest the real criminals who are abusing the system. But nothing in getting Backpage to turn off this section actually helps to stop such trafficking/prostitution. It just makes life that much more difficult for law enforcement, since they now need to do a lot more work to track down the people abusing these laws. I fail to see how that's a positive result, as the government has insisted.

from the we-could-have-told-you-that dept

Last year, we wrote about a former child prostitute who sued Village Voice Media for its Backpage classified ads offerings, since this was a tool previously used to sell her. Now there has been a lot of controversy in the last couple of years (mainly from grandstanding politicians) about prostitution ads on Craigslist and Backpage. However, as has been pointed out over and over and over again, the liability belongs on the person actually committing the crime, not the service provider. And, in fact, the law, via Section 230 of the CDA gives service providers immunity.

Still, we were a little worried that since this case was highly emotionally charged, and involved a child prostitute, that the court might make a bad ruling. Instead, it appears that court has made a really strong and useful ruling explaining repeatedly why Backpage is not liable. The girl's lawyers basically tried every trick in the book to get around Section 230 immunity, but the court debunked each and every one. Many of the claims she made are the types of claims we see in the comments from people who don't understand safe harbors (like saying that you lose safe harbors if you make money). Eric Goldman, at the link above, walks one by one through each of the lawyer's attempts to get around Section 230, and explains why the judge rejected it. It's worth reading the whole thing, but here's a snippet:

Backpage allows keyword searches. Citing several cases, including Jurin and Rosetta Stone, the court says this is irrelevant.

Backpage created an adult category. The court cites Dart v. Craigslist in concluding this is irrelevant.

Backpage takes steps to increase its revenues. Backpage allegedly "tout[ed] its website as a 'highly tuned marketing site' and instruct[ed] posters of ads on how to best increase the impact of those ads." The court responds: "to find Backpage to be not immune from suit based on M.A.'s allegations about how it structured its website in order to increase its profits would be to create a for-profit exception to § 230's broad grant of immunity. This the Court may not do."

Backpage allegedly knew prostitution was advertised on the site. The court cites several cases for the proposition that knowledge is irrelevant to 230's immunity.

It's nice to see, yet again, a court recognize that liability should be properly applied, and we shouldn't blame 3rd party service providers for the actions of their users.

from the good-for-them dept

On Tuesday, we wrote about how a group of grandstanding state attorneys general had moved on from blaming Craigslist for the actions of its users, now that they had successfully censored that site, and began demanding similar censorship for Backpage.com, the online classifieds from Village Voice Media. As a few people have sent in, Backpage does not seem interested in backing down, posting a public response and pointing out that they are operating perfectly in accordance with the law, that even the AGs admit that Backpage cooperates with law enforcement, and that the AGs would be better served going after those actually involved in the activities, rather than blaming third parties:

While no system is perfect, even the AGs acknowledge Backpage.com's good-faith cooperation with law enforcement.

In the last two years, Backpage.com users have posted 58 million ads and only 6 million in the adult services section. Federal and state authorities have called on Backpage.com to testify in just five cases involving alleged abuse of underage persons. Backpage.com continues to respond to valid subpoenas from law enforcement officials whose job it is to investigate, apprehend and prosecute criminals who wrongfully post illegal ads and victimize others.

Backpage.com is disappointed that the AGs have determined to shift blame from criminal predators to a legal business operator in an apparent attempt to capitalize on political opportunity during the election season.

They also note: "Censorship will not create public safety nor will it rid the world of exploitation."

"I am deeply disappointed by this unfortunate and unfounded resistance to taking common-sense steps toward protecting women and children. I am hopeful that the company will reconsider its resistance and do the right thing. I will consult with my fellow attorneys general and consider possible next steps."

Notice that he does not respond to any of the actual points raised. He does not respond to the fact that shutting down these services won't do anything to help protect women and children and will almost certainly make the problem worse. He just pretends that the world is the exact opposite of what it is. It's as if Richard Blumenthal thinks that everyone out there is incredibly dumb and believes the world works as he says it does, rather than how it actually works.